What’s Next for Myanmar-Laos Relations?

Laos and Myanmar, fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) who share a 238 kilometer-long border and are riparian states along the Mekong River, established ties back in 1955. But in large part due to regional instability during the Vietnam War and its aftermath, as well as each country’s own domestic political and economic challenges, it has only been over the past few decades that both sides have really begun deepening collaboration across the security, economic, and people-to-people ties. Indeed, it was only in the 1990s that we saw steps taken toward close ties, with the finalization of the official border demarcation and the formation of the Myanmar-Laos Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation.

Though collaboration between the two sides has been explored in areas ranging from controlling drug abuse to education to tourism, relatively speaking most of the attention tends to be focused on the economic aspect of ties, with both countries still being quite underdeveloped. Both sides have explored opportunities bilaterally in terms of projects like the new Myanmar-Laos Friendship Bridge set up in 2015, or subregionally with other countries in mainland Southeast Asia whether around the Mekong or other mechanisms among the CLMV countries (an acronym for the subgrouping of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam).

Over the past two-plus years, both countries have been preoccupied with important political transitions. In November 2015, Myanmar elected its first civilian government in over a half-century following an historic election victory for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), with party leader Aung San Suu Kyi taking up the position of state counselor. Meanwhile, the Laos Communist Party, which has ruled the country since 1975, held its quinquennial congress to elect leaders in 2016, with Thongloun Sisoulith being elevated to premier. These transitions occurred amid a series of important developments in Southeast Asia, including the growing involvement of major powers in mainland Southeast Asia and the fracturing of ASEAN around contentious issues like the South China Sea, as Myanmar and Laos discovered when they chaired ASEAN in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Following those transitions, Vientiane and Naypyidaw both moved quickly to solidify bilateral ties amid a new domestic environment and changing regional and global realities. Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw visited Laos in May 2016 and Laos President Bounnhang Vorachith visited Myanmar in August 2016. In both cases it was the leaders’ first trip abroad after taking office, a testament to the significance they attach to cultivating better ties with their immediate neighborhood in general and with each other in particular.

On January 15, Thongloun kicked off his first visit to Myanmar since his ascension to the premiership in 2016. Since this was the second visit by a Lao leader to Myanmar following the president’s trip in August 2016, the trip was closely watched by neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand and in major regional powers like China, which has intensified its involvement in mainland Southeast Asia in recent years.

In January, Thongloun met with several officials including State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Htin Kyaw. The discussions were wide-ranging, according to Myanmar state media, covering the range of areas in the bilateral relationship that have also been discussed previously – including trade, investment, transportation, education, energy, and countering transnational crimes – as well as regional and international issues.

During the discussions, there was talk of reaching the “untapped potential” of the relationship in some key areas, such as people-to-people ties. Tourism, in particular, is a priority for Laos, which launched the “Visit Laos Year 2018” campaign in late 2017. But the focus of most accounts of the trip was on the fact that the two sides had agreed to sign three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on electric power, science and technology, and combating corruption.

Most media attention focused on the energy MOU, with few specifics released on the other two agreements. The focus on the energy realm comes as no surprise given the priority both countries have attached to it and developments already underway. The Myanmar government has said that it will look to buy electricity from foreign countries to meet the country’s growing energy needs, and Laos, which has dubbed itself the “battery of Southeast Asia,” has been eying new markets to sell electricity. Last September, Malaysia and Thailand inked an agreement with Laos in this regard.

Though the specifics of the new Laos-Myanmar energy MOU were not disclosed after the visit, the head of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines, Daovong Phonekeo, had said earlier that Myanmar wanted to purchase around 100-200 megawatts (MW) of energy, and that, if everything progresses as scheduled, Laos could start selling electricity by the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019. If cooperation on this front does indeed take off, that could be a boost for bilateral ties given the importance of energy as an issue for both sides.

The dust is still settling from Thongloun’s latest visit, and we will have to wait for the latter part of 2018 to evaluate the extent to which both sides have actually made progress in implementing these three new MOUs. In the meantime, we could see more high-level visits – with Thongloun inviting Suu Kyi to visit Laos sometime this year – as well as working-level meetings between the two sides that will give us a better sense of how cooperation in functional areas is progressing in Laos-Myanmar relations.